French champions Paris Saint-Germain have drawn attention to themselves with
an enormous sponsorship deal with the Qatar Tourism Authority

Paris Saint-Germain’s official club store on the Champs Elysees is impressive enough and the queues of fans clutching Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Edinson Cavani shirts suggests it is also generating plenty of Euros for the club’s bank account.

Not that the French champions seem to need the loose change generated by sales of merchandise, however, judging by their recently-announced sponsorship deal with the Qatar Tourism Authority.

In case you missed it - it did not generate the publicity it perhaps should have done when it was confirmed two weeks ago - PSG will earn up to €200m-a-year from the four-year deal.

The agreement, which is understood to be back-dated to 2012, is due to increase incrementally on a year-by-year basis to the extent that it will be worth the €200m figure by 2016.

“Our association with the Qatar Tourism Authority allows us to give ourselves the means necessary for the development of the club in the direction that we envisage," said PSG chief executive, Jean-Claude Blanc.

Related Articles

"It clearly benefits the image, as well as the results, of the club. QTA's support enables us to offer our supporters a level of performance in keeping with their expectations and our ambitions."

With PSG owned and bank-rolled by the Qatar Investment Authority, the deal with the same country’s tourism authority is unlikely to go unnoticed by Uefa, however, with their Financial Fair Play regulations due to kick in for real this season.

When Manchester City announced their £350m, 10-year deal with Etihad Airways two years ago, the figures involved prompted many to question the true value of the agreement and whether the club had circumvented FFP by securing funds from owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan simply by indirect means.

Etihad, the national airline of Abu Dhabi, the home emirate of Sheikh Mansour, was surely too close to the man in charge of City to strike a fair deal at market rates?

Uefa have investigated the deal, though, and the silence from Nyon suggests that all is above board with the Etihad agreement.

In fairness, £35m-a-year to have Etihad’s name on a shirt, stadium and training campus now seems cheap in comparison to the kind of deals struck by City’s rivals.

Manchester United will be receive £53m-a-year from Chevrolet from next season simply for the car manufacturer’s brand to be emblazoned on their shirt.

Aon, meanwhile, are paying £180m over eight years to have their name on United’s training centre.

But the PSG deal is the one which blows all others out of the water and, if Uefa are serious, the one which should set alarm bells ringing when it comes to FFP.

Attempts to force clubs to be financially healthy and self-sustainable are at the root of FFP regulations, but within them, there are key checks and balances to prevent loopholes being exploited.

Any commercial deals struck with ‘related parties’ - owners or associates - will be assessed by Uefa to ensure that the moneys generated are from ‘fair rates.’

Will €200m a year be classed as a fair rate by Uefa or ‘mates rates?‘

Considering that even the likes of United, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid - football’s superpowers of commercial revenue - fail to earn such sums, PSG may be in trouble.

“It looks like a pretty astounding deal that certainly stretches credibility,” said David Lampitt, who was involved in drawing up Uefa’s FFP guidelines. “Whether it undermines FFP or not rests with Uefa and how they deal with it.

“When you look at the historic value of sponsorship deals for Paris Saint-Germain and the French League you’ll find this is hugely out of kilter.”

Under Qatari ownership, PSG have emerged as France’s leading football club and become a contender for Champions League success having attracted the likes of Ibrahimovic, Cavani and Ezequiel Lavezzi to Paris.

When Manchester United arranged a medical for Brazilian winger Lucas Moura in the summer of 2012, a £30m deal had been agreed for the Sao Paulo player until PSG’s financial power saw them hijack the transfer at the eleventh hour by outbidding United.

On the pitch and off it, PSG have flexed their muscles and landed blows on the biggest, richest and most illustrious clubs in the world.

But they will all have noted the QTA deal and will now expect Uefa to prove that their FFP regulations are worth more than the paper they are written on.